


Dragons are Cool! And Cuddly!

by jacquelee



Category: Orange is the New Black
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:50:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7317760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacquelee/pseuds/jacquelee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orange is the New Black fantasy AU in which dragons are real and Suzanne meets one of the cuddly variety. </p>
<p>Warnings are for violence against dragons and non-graphic descriptions of child abuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dragons are Cool! And Cuddly!

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the comment_fic prompt "Author's choice (please no Supernatural), author's choice, dragons are not supposed to be cuddly - but this one is".

Suzanne was sad. She had tried fitting in, but she never would. She was too big, too loud, too black. Too different. Her parents always pushed her to fit in, to do things she never wanted to do. 

A part of her just wanted to run away, but she knew what happened to girls like her who were alone without family, without anyone. She didn't want that. Even so, it did sound less and less scary every day compared to what she endured at home. 

The dragon market was her sanctuary. She came here whenever she could escape her mother. She always loved watching the dragons. The other girls, her so-called-sister's friends, had said that dragons were scary and dangerous. Her mother always explicitly forbade her to go near them, which only made her all the more determined to do so. 

All the dragons were sad. She had gotten to know them over the weeks of coming here. There was Short Tail, whose seller always praised her aggressiveness and cunning but who failed to perform. Every time she was punished, Suzanne winced. 

And there was Red Beard, who looked like an old man and who had quite a short temper. Suzanne always rooted for him to finally roast his seller for good, but of course, that never happened. 

Long Snout was majestic and also pretty aggressive. She had been here the longest from what Suzanne could gather. It wasn't like people didn't want aggressive dragons, that was their point after all, but they didn't like it when they showed this many signs of torture. 

Weird, Suzanne thought, they had no problem with the torture itself, they just didn't want to be reminded of it. In that, they were similar to her parents, who always changed the topic and told her she was wrong when she talked about how much they hurt her. 

She wished she could free all the dragons. She wished she could just take one and fly away. Be free. 

But of course that was not possible. Even if she could free one of them when the handler wasn't looking, which actually didn't even seem that impossible, the dragon would sooner destroy everything in the market and then fly away without her than actually help her in turn. 

And quite honestly, she could understand that. For all they knew, she was just another human out to hurt them. 

So she just kept on visiting them, day in day out. 

One day, there was a new dragon. It was big and purple, one of the ones that were used as battle dragons. But this one was different. No matter how much the handler yelled and whipped it, it wasn't aggressive at all. It didn't spit fire.

What it did was cuddle into the handlers body, no matter how much he tried to shove it away. In the end he seemed to give up, because there was nothing he could do against it. And so, after realizing that the dragon would cuddle everyone and didn't pose a threat, he advertised it as novelty sensation. The cuddling dragon. 

Instead of selling it, he sold moments with it. Children would come up with their parents and cuddle the dragon. Everyone wanted to see and cuddle this very special beast.

Suzanne became fascinated with it. She saved all her allowance for more and more cuddle time with the dragon. She called it Cuddly and with every single time she came back, she felt like she, for it was a female dragon, liked her back more and more. She noticed that with others, Cuddly would cuddle them without much emotion, but when she cuddled her, there was something in her stance, in her eyes. 

She knew Cuddly genuinely liked her, even though her emotions were hardly noticeable. One day, when the handler was distracted by another dragon setting the adjacent stall on fire and nobody else looked, Cuddly even dared to lick Suzanne's face with a tongue that was bigger than her entire head in a clear sign of affection that she had never shown to anyone before. 

"You are sad too, aren't you?" 

Looking up into those big, deep, dark eyes, she knew that Cuddly understood her. There was the faintest hint of a nod, something that felt like she imagined it, but she knew she didn't. 

"I wish we could go away. We could be free."

Now Cuddly seemed to be very tense albeit interested. But at that moment the handler came back and shushed Suzanne away. 

She had found new hope though. She knew what she had seen in Cuddly's eyes. She knew that she had found an ally. 

Over the next few weeks, she made plans. She studied the market, the handler routines, Cuddly's restraints, everything. And she studied maps and countries they could escape to. 

What at first had seemed like a far fetched, impossible idea, became more and more concrete with every passing day. Suzanne had not had another opportunity to talk to Cuddly, but every time she came she tried to communicate with her, using her eyes and facial expressions. 

Every time she came to Cuddly she saw the light in the dragon's eyes shine a little brighter. And every time she shook her head nearly imperceptibly. Not yet. But soon. Soon we'll get out of here. 

It felt like the other dragons in the market knew there was something going on between Cuddly and her. She had noticed before that it seemed like every time she came up for her cuddle time, some other dragon would make a ruckus somewhere and distract the handlers so that she could always prolong her time a little bit. 

And then one day, the dragons seemed to know that there was a unique chance. It was the day new dragons were brought in and old dragons were relocated. That meant a lot of confusion and a lot of people running around. Which meant distractions, which meant opportunity. 

Suzanne had already packed all her belongings into a small pack that she had hidden in a place as far away from her parents' place – she did not call it home – as she could, so that when this worked, she could later fly there with Cuddly and get them. 

Still, even with all the distractions and with the chance seeming so obvious, Suzanne hesitated. What if she didn't succeed? What if they killed Cuddly? What if they hunted them and they didn't manage to escape? Would she actually be able to communicate with Cuddly enough to make it? 

She knew she wanted to do this but the specifics ran around in her head and made her dizzy. But, right when she came up to Cuddly having decided to just wing it and think later, everything happened really fast. A passing dragon, Suzanne only later realized it was Long Snout, rammed Cuddly's stall and caused the handler to scramble and yell. 

It seemed completely arbitrary, but Suzanne realized immediately that it had to have been a conscious move, because it left Suzanne as the only person on the other side of Cuddly while both of them were cut off from the rest of the market, especially the handlers with their whips and sticks, by about a ton of angry aggressive dragon in between them, spitting fire seemingly randomly but as Suzanne noticed actually in a very thought out pattern that further isolated her and Cuddly from the market. 

She didn't hesitate a second but jumped on the giant chains that kept Cuddly in place, following them to the lock. She had hoped to steal the key, but only when she was there realized that she hadn't and now she didn't know what to do. Long Snout, who was still raging, finally looked at her and seemed to realize her predicament. 

The dragon looked her in the eye and Suzanne felt like she saw hope in those giant, sad, black orbs. Then she spit fire on the chains, both hers and Cuddly's, so close to Suzanne that she could feel the intense heat. It must have hurt both dragons as their wings were in chains and the fire burnt into their flesh, but Suzanne knew the prospect of freedom was worth it.

And finally they were free. The chains fell off the wings and no matter how much the handlers screamed and scrambled now, Long Snout spread her giant wings, still carefully avoiding the tiny figure of Suzanne who now basically standing under her, and after a few attempts actually leapt forward and into the air. 

There was even more shouting and arrows were shot at the escaping dragon but they didn't seem to bother her at all. Together with everyone in the market, Suzanne looked open mouthed at the smaller and smaller figure of the dragon. All of this had only taken seconds and still Suzanne was startled when she was suddenly grabbed gently by her collar and lifted in the air. 

Cuddly now also spread her wings but before she leapt into the air she lifted Suzanne up onto her back. Not knowing how exactly to do this, Suzanne held on as best as she could to the dragon's back and hoped for the best.

And then they were flying. Flying away to freedom. Suzanne still couldn't believe it actually worked. They were actually free. When they were already a long way from the market place, she remembered her pack and yelled as loud as she could to be audible over the wind.

"Can we land by the river? Right where the forest starts. I have some things there I want to take." 

She didn't know if Cuddly understood her but soon enough the dragon lost speed and circled back over the forest, landing gracefully by the river. Suzanne got off, which wasn't that easy a maneuver but Cuddly helped her by getting as low as possible. 

Once she had gotten her pack, she was ready to climb back onto Cuddly's back, but the dragon seemed to have a little different ideas. Instead of lifting her up, she lowered her head and rubbed it against Suzanne in a very clear gesture. 

"You want to cuddle a little before we fly again?" 

The answer was a clear nod and Suzanne put her arms around Cuddly's head as best as possible and closed her eyes, reveling in the moment. 

"We are free now. Free!"

This got an instant reaction. Cuddly's whole body seemed to shiver and she opened her mouth a little bit to let out a sound that was at once happy and sorrowful. 

Suzanne realized that tears were running down her face and she felt like Cuddly was also crying, as much as dragons could cry. They stood like that as long as they dared and then Cuddly nudged her and Suzanne nodded, understanding. 

"Let's fly!"


End file.
